The league rescinded James Jones technical foul with 7:59 in the fourth quarter, but he was given a Flagrant 1 foul by the league for his hard foul on Paul Pierce at that time.

Jermaine O’Neal’s flagrant foul from the third quarter was downgraded to a regular foul.

What does all that mean? Not much unless guys keep racking up enough flagrant and technical fouls to get a suspension down the line in the playoffs. It does not change the outcome of the game.

Miami came out and established itself as the more physical team in Game 1. If that trend continues they can start to be concerned about how those flagrants add up in the next round, because they will be moving on.

All this flagrant crap is a joke. Why didn’t Paul Pierce get sent to the locker room for getting in Jones’ face meat with his own? Why did PP get t’d for setting a sloppy pick? Did anyone see anything malicious there? If you said “yes”, only you and the doosh who called it would agree. Why does the NBA call fouls and take them back after the game is over? How did not having PP in the game not effect the outcome? Was it because the Heat were playing “more physical” mean that they probably would have won without PP being in the game? The only thing that is worse than the bogus NBA officiating is the people who blog about it.

Let’s see. The Heat were up by 13 at that point. The next play, they drained a wide open 3-pointer (by Wade, who Pierce was not covering). In other words, they were up by 16 with 7 minutes to go.
Up by 16 with 7 minutes left? Pierce shouldn’t have been called for the 2nd Technical, but the Heat outplayed the Celtics all game long, and the Heat were not losing this game in any case. The Celtics are the best team in the league at executing down the stretch and beating inexperienced teams in close 4th quarter games. But they are not comeback artists, not being down by 16 midway through the 4th. And especially not against a top-5 defense, with plenty of stars to turn to for offensive buckets and drawn fouls.

Rondo’s foul on Lebron during the first quarter should be explained why it wasn’t clear path foul or flagrant as well. I don’t disagree with any of the changes above but would love some consistency for a change.